Rationalist Sport

MathiasZaman

This post is a bit of an experiment; Most of the time, Discussion post lay out an idea and this idea then get commented upon. This post, on the other hand, will be purely about discussion on a topic. If this works out well, I'll might post more of these in the future.

On to the meat of this post:

I got this idea from a reddit post on /r/LessWrong.

To quote:

I remember my sociology textbook explaining that sports often show what a group values. Bowling was popular with machinists and factory workers who valued repeated precision, while American football was watched and played by a culture that valued extreme specialization of individuals, but able to work as a team.

So I've been thinking about what we would value in a sport, and what sport we could create that exemplifies those values (not interested in picking an existing sport).

So have at it.

I only ask for one thing and that is to hold off on proposing solutions for 24 hours before giving suggestions for actual sports. In the first 24 hours, please discuss what makes current sports unappealing to rationalists and what aspects a sports designed for aspiring rationalists should have.

Edit: The 24-hour window has closed and solutions and suggestions can now be given.

On to the meat of this post:

I got this idea from a reddit post on /r/LessWrong.

To quote:

I remember my sociology textbook explaining that sports often show what a group values. Bowling was popular with machinists and factory workers who valued repeated precision, while American football was watched and played by a culture that valued extreme specialization of individuals, but able to work as a team.

So I've been thinking about what we would value in a sport, and what sport we could create that exemplifies those values (not interested in picking an existing sport).

So have at it.

Edit: The 24-hour window has closed and solutions and suggestions can now be given.

Both of these are excellent points. Regarding military war games, what I had in mind is that the rules should be realistic (to maximize the number of possible strategies) while still being difficult or impossible to game; neither of which seems to be the case for military war games as they are currently played. This might entail (as in HPMoR!Quirrell's war games) that there should be no formal rules at all but a judge to decide who had won by practical real-world standards, but this would probably severely limit the popularity of the sport.

I have not played airsoft and so was unaware of these safety measures. What are the risks and rates of injury after accounting for common safety practices? It seems like the only other dangers would be those common to all sports involving running around in rough terrain. Assuming there are rules in place for players being eliminated from the game once they are shot (and not being allowed to give information to team members about enemy positions, etc.) this seems like the perfect rationalist sport.

Without going into a "definition war", I think not having a clear objective for winning makes it more into a game than a sport. Wiping out 90% of the enemy team could be a decent victory condition, but that's just the first thing that comes to mind and other ideas are likely better.

I have not played airsoft and so was unaware of these safety measures. What are the risks and rates of injury after accounting for common safety practices?

They seem to be about similar to other sports that have similar movement-types. You run, jump, slide... just l... (read more)